It only occurred to me a few weeks ago that Gwyn in Taking Flight is a bit out of the ordinary, because he’s trans. And some people still find that edgy, or unusual or something to be looked down on.
And this post is to say, I am so sick of that. Of all of it. I’m sick of it from the wider world and I’m sick of it on a smaller, punching-down scale from within the LGBTQIA+ community.
I came across a post on a facebook group the other day where someone was bemoaning all these new genders and sexualities people can identify with. It really, really upset me. It was from someone within the community, who I would therefore hope would have know better. How dare that person imply that identifying as an even more marginalised identity than their own was somehow unacceptable?
We’ve always been here. The fact that there are words now when there weren’t before doesn’t mean we’re new.
Homosexual can only be traced back to 1880. Lesbian has an earlier origin but was only used commonly as a noun to describe same-sex attracted women from about then as well. Transgender dates from the early seventies. These are all labels that are now in common use and have a common cultural meaning to most of us. Labels are helpful for our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of those around us. They’re not cast-iron boxes we’re locked in, they’re a starting point for dialogue and exploration.
Just because you don’t understand the label doesn’t make it any less real.
That goes for those people out there who don’t understand how people can be lesbian, gay or trans, as well as those within the community who can’t understand how one can be non-binary, or bi, or pan, or demi, or use neo-pronouns, or identify however one bloody well wants to.
Don’t punch down, basically. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of living in a racist, ableist, transphobic, discriminatory-on-all-levels society where it’s okay to say these things. I’m sick at myself for not calling this person on their comment. I feel stupid for writing a story about someone very marginalised and not realising what I was doing because to me, being trans is just as normal as not being trans. About the first four iterations of the blurb didn’t mention it, for fuck’s sake! And then I thought… Oh! that might be something readers might like to know about! How stupid is that? There’s a major drama in there, where a prospective lover discovers he’s trans…and it initially didn’t occur to me to put that in the blurb.
Was that because being outed is such an everyday worry to a load of people I know that it was another normal thing for me? Probably. Who knows?
I’m so tired of all of it. Everything is a fight, a fight to force people to be kind. And it shouldn’t be.